Memory Alpha:Ten Forward/Archive 2005
Planets I suggest we start a list of unnamed planets, in order to accomodate planets such as the one which the Organians were studying in ENT: "Observer Effect" and the planet that was rich in magnesite in "Bound". --Defiant | ''Talk'' 18:55, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC) :The article is at Unnamed planets. Any unnamed planets that anyone finds can be added there. --Defiant | ''Talk'' 11:54, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) Lists of... I'd like to see a List of spacial anomalies, List of temporal anomalies and a List of medical procedures. Any thoughts? Tyrant 16:53, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)Tyrant :Feel free to start them or, if you don't want to write them yourself, request them on Memory Alpha:Requested Articles. :) -- Cid Highwind 17:03, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC) Thanks, I like to test the water first these days as i've found initiative can put on the defensive around here. heh. Tyrant 17:11, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)Tyrant :Well, there's no policy to stop you from creating any article you like. However, if the article turns out to be useless for some reason (in the case of a list: if there are too few items, for example), someone else might suggest it for deletion... That's life. ;) -- Cid Highwind 17:23, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::I'd suggest list of spatial anomalies (correct spelling) ::Just because someone has input on whether an article should exist, or whether it should be altered or renamed, i wouldn't really see it as being "on the defensive" -- it's part of wiki collaboration when someone corrects some spelling or tries to ensure that an article reaches a higher level of quality -- we're all working on the same project here. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 17:34, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC) *I agree. However, wording should be considered and insult avoided. Tyrant 17:49, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)Tyrant **I agree that its very easy to take insult here -- i've been on both sides of that particular coin, and its always regrettable when it causes friction, but I think I've tried to make amends with everyone who I considered to be insulting me, so I'm always willing to work on issues with anyone who feels i've insulted them. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 17:53, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC) ***My solution was to simply stop making major contributions a few months back, heh. (I'm still doing a few hours of link hunting dayly) And for the record I wasn't talking about you. Tyrant 19:06, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)Tyrant **Hmm, I wonder... --Gvsualan 23:41, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC) Earth Ship from ENT I can't seem to find an article on the Earth ship that found alongside the Intrepid (Earth) in "The Expanse" and "Twilight" - the triangular shaped one. I noticed a mirror version of it also appeared in the title sequence of "In a Mirror, Darkly". There is a line of speculation under Neptune class, but we should come up with a naming resolution for this vessel so that it can be included in M/A. --Gvsualan 11:21, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) Article Tense I've been looking through are various policies but cannot seem to find any established rules on article tense (past, present, future). The examples I've seen used in the guidelines show both past and present, and I've noticed most articles around here are in past tense - as are the ones I typically write. I noticed that User:Mark 2000 had a concern about this, and I thought I would ask you about the scenario. --Gvsualan 07:43, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) :I believe a general consensus for past-tense was reached in discussion -- however, policy pages are slow to follow discussion sometime, so I'm not sure where this ended up getting added. If you and I discuss this with a few other administrators and archivists, I'm sure we can find a way to disseminate this style policy. I think Ten Forward might be the best place to do this. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 07:46, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) See, I couldn't even find that discussion. Just this. --Gvsualan 10:05, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::This is connected to some discussions about our "point of view" that we had in the past - though I can't find a central location for that discussion, either. Basically, we're talking about events happening in three different centuries (with some special cases happening even outside that range). The only point of view that makes sense for MA, in my opinion, is one of a person existing "inside" the Trek universe and "after" the last of the events we are writing about. In this case, it only makes sense to write about everything in the past tense. -- Cid Highwind 13:51, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) :::What about background info, and distant future events like the Enterprise-J, etc.? --Defiant | ''Talk'' 22:17, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::::That's difficult to answer, because (in the case of Enterprise-J, for example), we're not only talking about something that happens later, but about something that might happen later, an alternate timeline. For the sake of simplicity, we might want to choose to write all articles in past tense, but it would be equally valid to write about possible future events in future tense, as someone from the 24th century would do. What do you all prefer? -- Cid Highwind 15:43, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) I also read somewhere that the past tense was preferred over future and present tense but I cannot remember where. I think it had something to do with MA being a library and that in this context past tense would be preferable. That was also the reason why I changed the Nog article to past tense. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to write an episode summary like a book, in present time like you are experiencing it. As far as I am concerned episode summaries would be the only articles valid for present time. -- Q 06:39, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) We should write all articles in the present. This is what the books say to do. Alternatively, we could write everything in the future now and in the 22nd century, start changing the tense to past. By the late 24th century, almost all articles will be in the past. I prefer the first idea better. As an example, last night, I wrote in Hoshi Sato (mirror) she poisons Jonathan Archer (mirror) and becomes Empress Hoshi Sato Ⅰ. Within hours, it became she poisoned Jonathan Archer (mirror) and became Empress Hoshi Sato I. # She will not do those things for 1½ centuries. # ¿What is wrong with the Roman Numeral Ⅰ as opposed to the letter I? — — Ŭalabio 21:48, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :You're looking at this from completely the wrong perspective. The perspective of Memory Alpha is that of the late 24th century - ie, several years past Star Trek: Nemesis, so that all events that have happened in the regular Trek timeline have already happened. And, what books? The Star Trek Encyclopedia, the only comparable reference work, takes the same view. The only exception to the past tense rule should be things that aren't a time-specific reference, ie, saying "Phasers are directed-energy weapons..." or "Archer IV is a planet...", and similar. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 22:35, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :: The books are the writing manuals from University. Basically in fiction, one writes things happening at the '' now '' of the characters in the present with things happening in the future of the characters happening in future and things happening in the past as past. When writing about fiction, on uses the same conventions. As an example, in the '' the Trouble with Tribbles, '' tribbles over run Deep Space K-7 and the [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) | ' USS '' Enterprise '' (NCC-1701). ' ]] — — Ŭalabio 04:43, 5 May 2005 (UTC) :::Don't miss the point -- in the 2380s, the tribbles overran K-7 over 120 years ago -- and Sato poisoned Archer in the mirror universe over 225 years ago. We are writing from a point-of-view of the late 24th century -- everything up to the end credits of Nemesis happened in the past. :::From the point of view of the Nemesis era, all of these things are behind us. That's the tone a normal encyclopedia reference writer would take -- we are trying to emulate a normal encyclopedia of the year 2380+. (and also, not to write fiction prose as may be recommended by writing guides, but a reference about a fictional topic. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 05:17, 5 May 2005 (UTC) :::: So Memory-Alpha.Org has its servers on the planetoid housing Memory Alpha in the closing days of the 24th century. — — Ŭalabio 06:23, 5 May 2005 (UTC) 10,000th article I noticed after I created T'Pring that it was the 10,000th article (see ), I thought this might be of some historical value. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 17:19, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) :I see the count of the number of articles has stopped at 9999 articles. -- rebelstrike 17:35, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) It's at 10009 now. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 21:44, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) Connection refused I noticed several times that when I was working on MA I could not get a connection to it. I have got the error "connection refused to memory-alpha.org" (or something to that effect) when I wanted to refresh a page or to connect to MA itself. If I tried it again after some time I could connect to MA. Anymore people who noticed this behaviour ? -- Q 19:58, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) :I had a similar problem earlier today. In fact it's happened to me several times recently, so I too await someone with more information's responce. -AJHalliwell 06:47, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) ¿Should we use Roman Numerals or letters for numbers? I notice that we currently use letters for numbers. I believe we should use Roman Numerals for numbers thus: # Ⅰ # Ⅱ # Ⅲ # Ⅳ # Ⅴ # Ⅵ # Ⅶ # Ⅷ # Ⅸ # Ⅹ # Ⅺ # Ⅻ # ⅰ # ⅱ # ⅲ # ⅳ # ⅴ # ⅵ # ⅶ # ⅷ # ⅸ # ⅹ # ⅺ # ⅻ Instead of letters for numbers thus: # I # II # IV # V # VI # VII # VIII # IX # X # XI # XII # i # ii # iv # v # vi # vii # viii # ix # x # xi # xii MediaWiki is fully Unicode-compliant, so no technical reason exists for not using Roman Numerals for numbers. — — Ŭalabio 22:03, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) : No, but a practical one exists. How exactly does one enter these codes? Are they easier to enter and remember than Shift-i? I seriously doubt it. MediaWiki may be Unicode-compliant, but keyboards are not. Besides which, the Unicode characters look appallingly out of place next to standard text - Archer Ⅳ vs. Archer IV. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 22:35, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :: '' “How exactly does one enter these codes?” '' That is easy: # The menu '' “Edit” '' # The menu-item '' “Special Characters” '' # The Unicode-Block '' “Number-Forms” '' ¡It is as easy as πr²! '' “Besides which, the Unicode characters look appallingly out of place next to standard text - Archer Ⅳ vs. Archer IV.” '' The true Roman Numerals look great to me. — — Ŭalabio 23:07, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :::Can you do that in Internet Explorer or Safari? I can't find that menu in IE, and I don't recall seeing it in Safari. Besides, with all do respect, three mouse steps to add "Ⅳ" is much more than the two keyboard taps it takes to put in "IV". -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 05:14, 1 May 2005 (UTC) :::: Since people say that these characters do not show on cellphones and the like, I drop this request for now '' (I reserve the right to bring this up in a decade or two when our Borg-like implants will solve the technical problems) '' but to answer your question. I use Safari. The menu '' “Edit” '' is the menu between '' “File” '' and '' “View”. '' It is available in most applications. The option '' “Special Character” '' is an option on the menu '' “Edit”. '' Selecting '' “Special Characters” '' causes a dialogue-box to appear with a side-bar of Unicode-Ranges such as '' '' “Miscellaneous Symbols” '' which contains these useful symbols: ☉ Sol 0 ☿ Sol Ⅰ ♀ Sol Ⅱ ♁ ☾ Sol Ⅲ ♂ Sol Ⅳ ♃ Sol Ⅴ ♄ Sol Ⅵ ♅ Sol Ⅶ ♆ Sol Ⅷ ♇ Sol Ⅸ — — Ŭalabio 11:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC) :: Agreed, the letters look better than the unicode, and it would be a pain to try to redo all the wikilinks and force everyone to use the same system. The unicode for "eleven" and "twelve" also show up as blocks on my browser... -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 22:39, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::: '' “it would be a pain to try to redo all the wikilinks and force everyone to use the same system.” '' Just moving an article to a new title leave a redirect. '' “The unicode for "eleven" and "twelve" also show up as blocks on my browser … ” '' They look great on my end. — — Ŭalabio 23:07, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) So Memory Alpha will only look great to one user? I'm sorry, but I can't describe to you how awful your Unicode text looks like when browsed on my Linux machine, or my cellphone. One of the basic principles of a wiki is to keep it simple -- to use the most common and easiest way to present information, so that it is more likely to be intuitively linked to, attract potential editors' attentions and so forth. This is a basic technical violation of our foundation here -- to present the data in a way which excludes some readers from being able to view it. Standard keyboard text is used for a reason, as is wiki markup -- to remove the problems associated with extraneous characters and HTML code. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 23:23, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :I agree, keep everything simple. IV is clear, easy to understand and to enter into an article. Besides that I find the unicode characters ugly because of there strange font, it looks like someone squased the letters together. -- Q 06:44, 1 May 2005 (UTC) Expanding the Timeline of Star Trek production I would say that an insignificant fraction of the dates "within" the Star Trek universe POV occur with months or with months and days -- this is why we don't wikilink "October 21, 2154" as Wikipedia does -- there wouldn't be enough information to create a separate article -- likewise I don't see 2154 being subdivided into January 2154, February 2154 any time soon. Since we aren't going to use these possible article headings for "in-universe" articles, I was wondering about the validity of creating some type of redirect structure where an article like May 1967 or December 1991 would lead back to a timeline page (1967 productions as a list page?) to show the order of release for Star Trek episodes, movies, books, games, novels and DVDs. This way, w would avoid cross-pollinating "in" and "out" universe references -- for example, if you link to 1967 it won't tell you anything about the episodes which were produced that year, etc, but if we link the month and the year we could direct the link to a more appropriate venue. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 19:12, 1 May 2005 (UTC) :Agreed, I like that format and an expanded timeline is something we've needed for a while. Redirects could be added to the Notes section of the Trek POV articles. -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 19:22, 1 May 2005 (UTC) ::I plan to get started soon -- i've thought about permutations for the titles -- i think "YEAR productions" should be fine for each -- each article would have 12 redirects, for each month that occurs in the dates. Should i phrase them spelled out October 1989, or leave them as stated in episode pages: "1989-10-21" ? :::That is tricky... Wikipedia uses the October 1989 format, but the 1989-10 format is what is used in the episode pages... perhaps stick with the spelt out version for the actual page, and create a useful redirect with the numbers? -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 02:44, 3 May 2005 (UTC) Canon Is information from deleted scenes seen as canon? --Defiant | ''Talk'' 23:36, 2 May 2005 (UTC) :I'm not exactly sure myself. We have several articles like USS Hemingway, USS Ticonderoga, Martin Madden, and Denab system, mostly from deleted scenes from Star Trek: Nemesis. However, the scenes also claim Beverly Crusher left to head Starfleet Medical, and I've been adamant about keeping that as background information in Crusher's article. To be fair, all of the aforementioned articles are clearly tagged as coming from deleted scenes... -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 02:50, 3 May 2005 (UTC) Unregistered users Just an open discussion, with no agenda. With the constant vandalism and typically very poor articles and submissions created by unregistered users, are they becoming more trouble than they are worth? Or is the non-registration policy the best way to allow new users to become involved immediately and learn the ropes? Has Memory Alpha reached a stage where it is best that only registered users are permitted, to maintain its integrity and cut down on vandalism? Or is it easier to identify vandalism when ip addresses stick out among a list of familiar users? What are your thoughts and opinions? -- Dmsdbo 00:56, 3 May 2005 (UTC) :Just my two cents -- i think unregistered users are more valuable than registered users sometimes, especially when it comes to fleshing our real life topics like military parlance, elemental chemistry, particle physics, etc, etc.. while they have no concept of or respect for the idea of a valid resource when it comes to "canon" Star Trek, they still know more than I do about a lot of subjects like that, and have no trouble writing about them. :However, I think the vandalism is getting a little extreme -- many blocked IP users are obviously coming back to taunt us on a new IP address a few minutes later -- our block process is far from being useful right now because of the vandals' ability to use a different IP a few minutes after being blocked. I find it especially troublesome thaty they have targeted me, and a few other users, it makes me seem they have a score to settle, even if it just a non-star trek fans' natural instinct to make fun of a star trek fan asserting itself. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 02:21, 3 May 2005 (UTC) ::If anonymous users are targeting your user page (which is 1. what I thought I'd seen in the past, and 2. what I think you're saying here), would it be possible to restrict the editing rights for user pages to the registered user, i.e., only I or an admin could edit my user page, only you or another admin could edit your user page, etc.? (The "Talk" pages should be left open as the obvious way for others to communicate with a user.) Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I don't know how much of a pain it would be to implement that kind of functionality. Anyway, it was just a thought on how to deal with vandalism of personal pages. I don't really see much of a way to restrict the vandalism on the regular pages without losing the advantages already mentioned in this discussion. -- umrguy42 10:33, 5 May 2005 (UTC) :::I would point out that our "friend" yesterday was on an AOL proxy - said IP addresses shift regularly, particularly on dial-up, so it is difficult to block those anyway. On "targetting", they obviously knew their way around a wiki, certainly - took a look at RC to get to the user pages of those who were reverting, and VIP, as well as a few pages under edit at the time, then "random page"d their way around. However, in future, I would advise against extensive blocking of these addresses - it can inconvenience other, innocent users. We'll see what happens tonight. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 18:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC) ::Captainmike's points are all well stated--anonymous contributors also work well as proofreaders... people who may have come to MA simply to look up an article and find a spelling or grammatical error, then fix it. We'd lose that valuable asset if unregistered users were blocked. And if someone really wants to do some damage, they won't stop just because it takes three seconds to register an account. I wouldn't take it personally, either... these are just immature people thinking they're going to be cute. In the end, there are many, many more people here who want to play nice and can help clean up in the wake of a spam attack... one would hope that the spammer will simply realize that it's not worth it to waste their time. However, it would be nice to have a feature which the administrators could use to automatically revert all edits from a certain user within a specified time period, especially concerning things like tonight's events. -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 02:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC) : Most registered users gave Memory-Alpha.Org a spin without registering. Certainly most edits from unregistered users are vandals, but it might be better to use mitigation such as watch all anonymous edits, the 3R-Rule not apply to logged in users reverting anonymous users, and have a message show after anonymous users save: '' “Due to a few people ruining it for everyone, anonymous users make only one edit daily, thus giving the admins a chance to review edits for vandalism. If you like, you can register and have unlimited editing rights. Understandably, if a user registers just to vandalize, we reserve the right to ban.” '' If we block the testdrive” '' new users will become a scarce commodity. We aldready have a natural experiment: At about the same time Memory-Alpha started, Hidden Frontier started a wiki here. Hidden Frontier decided that it would require people to login. Memory-Alpha flourishes while Hidden Frontier is on its deathbed. We should let people have their testdrive and mitigate the damage: # Watch all anonymous edits. # Have the 3R-Rule not apply to registered users reverting Anonymous users. # Limit Anonymous users to one edit per IP per day # Display a message to anonymous editors stating that they should login to eliminate the limit about editing. — — Ŭalabio 02:52, 3 May 2005 (UTC) ::Memory Alpha has no three-revert rule. -- Michael Warren | [[User talk:DarkHorizon|''Talk]] 18:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC) :1) A note on the Hidden Frontier site - maybe the low number of editors to that site could be due to the obscure nature of its content. MA has information on all the series, while HF is only a fan-made spin-off. :2) I think this site should continue as it is. However, I think a section of the site (such as the "Recent Changes" section) which only reflects the activities of unregistered users may be a good addition to this site. Also, user pages could have an option for Administrators to revert any user's edits which an Admin had selected. --Defiant | ''Talk'' 10:46, 3 May 2005 (UTC) ::I agree -- that would be great. You have such a range coming from the unregistered users. Some are vandals, and others write brief articles that need rewrites immediately. However, others are good proofreaders and some actuall make excellent contributions. -- Dmsdbo 13:13, 3 May 2005 (UTC) :OKAY -- Just a quick perusal of what had happened since I last left, and I must say that I'm losing patience rightly or wrongly. It seems that except for spelling and grammar checks, everything that unregistered users submit is either vandalism or useless information that it immediately reverted or pna'd. I'm starting to really question the value of their contributions, I fear, and am questioning the need for them. When this was first starting out, it was great to come in and give everyone a chance to contribute, but we have so much quality material here that it hardly seems necessary anymore. Of all the unregistered users who come and screw around, how many stay and become valuable contributors? If not cutting them outright, we should at least limit what they can do -- maybe time limiters (2-5 mins) per edit. Like they use on IMDB.com - except this would only be for unregistered users. I dunno - I suppose I am tired of seeing people's hard work vandalized, and spending half my time cleaning up after others. -- Dmsdbo 13:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC) ::Regarding the suggestions you all made - please keep in mind that we're using some standard software here. We basically have the option to allow or disallow anonymous contributors, but nothing more. Thus, we should concentrate on discussing these options. You might want to suggest everything else directly to the MediaWiki programmers. ::Defiant: ("However, I think a section of the site which only reflects the activities of unregistered users may be a good addition to this site.") Just click on "hide logged in users" on ... :) ::On-topic: I admit that I completely missed that last big vandal attack, but already saw several of them. We also discussed exactly this suggestion months ago on the forum. I still believe that we should allow anonymous contributions (as was the result of this last discussion). Just don't give the vandals what they are looking for (attention, anger, tantrums, ...). Another important point, in my opinion, is to actually tell non-vandal anonymous contributors why their additions have been reverted. This is something many of us forget occasionally. -- Cid Highwind 13:42, 4 May 2005 (UTC) Please see m:Talk:Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit on the Meta-Wikipedia. A lot of good points are raised on both sides, and it is rather illuminating. One major point I get from there - "Most vandals are anonymous users. The converse, that most anonymous users are vandals, is NOT true." (from (moink 19:57, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)). Anonymous users provide substantial improvement to MA - they are our spell-checkers, our fact-checkers, our stub-creators; we have a major anonymous user who has substantially expanded the episode pages of Star Trek: The Original Series with a glorious wealth of background information (albeit, mixed in with a little too much personal commentary). They ask questions that may lead to a major article rework; they link words to create articles we may never have considered. And yes, whilst it appears that all anon users do is vandalise, post copyvios, and spoil the wiki for others, that's only because those users' actions are what attract our attention and get us riled up, as I see User:Dmsdbo doing (getting riled up, that is). Vandalism is just something that any wiki must deal with. People come and try out the wiki - sometimes they stay, sometimes they leave, sometimes they get frustrated when we apply our policies and launch an attack on us. It's what happens. It's what's been happening since we started - hell, it's been the same with Wikipedia since they started, and you haven't seen them restrict users. Why? Because it goes against the very principle of a wiki - that anyone can edit. On a related note, those calling for restrictions on anon IP edits: I scrutinise every anon edit that comes through (with the exception of the ones I know come from User:Defiant). Your typical anon "regular contributor" may make ten or twenty edits in a day. Your "test driver", only one or two. Your vandal... it depends on how committed he/she is. Our AOL "friend" yesterday is somewhat of a rarity, as most are warned off by test and vandalism notices/warnings. The total average number of anon edits per day is roughly 200, a figure that is easily monitorable - I regularly am able to check through a night's worth of RC in ten minutes or so (more only when a significant vandalism spree takes place). However, our small community means that all of us must work together to deal with any problems. A lot of the time, I see vandalism left unfixed at a time when other users are around - sometimes it's several hours later when I see it and revert it. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 18:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC) ::After tonight's multi-hour vandal raid -- I'd just as soon say ban them now. Sorry, just my (humble) opinion. -- Dmsdbo 00:56, 6 May 2005 (UTC) ::I'm starting to get really frustrated with unregistered users and their frequent ignorance of MA guidelines. I also say... "ban them"!--Defiant | ''Talk'' 01:32, 25 May 2005 (UTC) Pages needing attention We are approaching somewhat of a problem point with Memory Alpha:Pages needing attention. Each day, more articles are tagged with and its variants - and yet, they don't seem to be disappearing off that status as quickly. I have just finished classifying many of the standard messages, recategorising where more specific templates are appropriate, removing where no talk page details exist. This is how we stand: *Category:Memory Alpha pages needing attention - 43 articles *Category:Memory Alpha pages needing citation - 6 articles *Category:Memory Alpha inaccurate articles - 10 articles *Category:Memory Alpha incomplete articles - 146 articles! *Category:Memory Alpha unformatted articles - 12 articles Whilst it seems that some of these numbers are low, a lot of them have been lingering around for a while without resolution. I believe this is because they are tagged and, once off RC, aren't noticed again. So, I have a few suggestions/points to make: #Please classify articles with the appropriate template: , , , , . Please try to restrict to where more than one action is required, or where the attention required doesn't fit any of the other four. #Remember to indicate on the talk page what needs fixing. This is only the case for pna, inaccurate and incomplete - the other two have been modified to remove reference to talk pages, since they don't really need further explanation. #If adding a page to one of the PNA categories, have a look through said categories to see if there's anything you can fix. Unformatted and cite are the easiest to deal with - inaccurate and incomplete require more work, pna may depend on what is needed. #Have a look through Category:Memory Alpha incomplete articles asap, and see if there are any pages you know you can help with. A copy of the Encyclopedia, if you have it, is enough to help deal with some of these. For others, with major requirements, try checking the scripts as well. #If you tag an article which you think requires major work, add it to your watchlist. Check back in a few days or weeks to see if improvement has been made. At a later point you may have the time to deal with the problems yourself, or be able to call further attention to them. I will probably do this tally once every month or two months to see where we stand. Many thanks. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 18:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC) New Swedish version Johan Grauers recently requested a Swedish edition of Memory Alpha. He has now created the basic pages required by the new language edition policy, and Jason Richey has set up the wiki for this today at memory-alpha.org/sv. Please help out with the new community there if you can, and add interlanguage links between there and here once some articles are created. Let me know if there are any problems with the new version. Angela (talk) 23:50, 5 May 2005 (UTC) Associate IP? How do you associate your edits under an IP with your username? -- Dmsdbo 13:24, 7 May 2005 (UTC) Wiki color scheme The color scheme of Memory Alpha hurts my eyes. I can hardly read the text against the dark background, in particular the dark blue links. The other skin choices under preferences are no good, either, since they don't have the same layout as the MonoBook. Could another skin be created, identical to MonoBook except that the colors are reversed? (As an example, see the Wikipedia.) —LCARS 23:28, 6 May 2005 (UTC) :You can have your own skin see . I have done it too, because I cannot see the red links on the dark ground, so I brightened them up, same for the changes on the pages -- Kobi - [[ :Kobi|( )]] 08:36, 7 May 2005 (UTC) ::That's perfect! Thank you. —LCARS 21:52, 7 May 2005 (UTC) ::Well, it is perfect for those who want to play around skins and style sheets, but it doesn't help the casual user. The blues are not generally a problem for me, (though the "visited" links are slightly too dark). It is the red links that hurt my eyes, I can barely see the words without serious straining. Just my two cents. ::P.S. I love this site. I'm so glad you guys are doing this! :: T'Play(talk) 04:32, 9 May 2005 (UTC) How does a user actually activate a different colour scheme? --Defiant | ''Talk'' 20:42, 10 May 2005 (UTC) :Make sure you're logged in, and then go to the page "User:user name/monobook.css". In your case, User:Defiant/monobook.css. Editing this page will allow you to override the default CSS definitions, which are found at MediaWiki:Monobook.css. With a little trial and error, you can find and replace the specific color codes for various elements of the wiki. Here are two examples to help you set it up: Kobi's is pretty straightforward. Mine is way more drastic a change from the default. Notice the tags at the beginning and end. —LCARS 21:55, 10 May 2005 (UTC) That's great, thanks! --Defiant | ''Talk'' 12:20, 11 May 2005 (UTC) Sash/Baldric? Worfs accessorie I just read an articel about the star fleet uniform, at the bottom is an image with a text saying "Worf wearing his klingon sahs", is this called a sash though? in Insurrection Picard refered to it as a Baldric (Quote: "Straighten your baldric commander"). what is it called? I've personally never heard of a "sash" Crazy Voyager83.177.11.139 09:26, 9 May 2005 (UTC) :Baldric would definitely seem to be the more correct term for Worf's metal accessory -- but a sash is a piece of fabric material worn in the same manner. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 14:01, 9 May 2005 (UTC) :: I just like the word baldric better, seems more regal than a "sash". I don't remember the quote from ''Insurrection'', but I'd be happy changing it. — THOR 15:01, 9 May 2005 (UTC) :On a related note dealing with militaria, what's the deal with military uniforms that have a belt going over one shoulder -- it was used by officers in "In a Mirror, Darkly", and has been seen on the various Space-Nazis we've seen over the years, so its a "real-life" accessory -- I called it a "brace" since it looks like half of a pair of suspenders, but I think there might be a more appropriate term i'm not aware of. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 20:50, 9 May 2005 (UTC) ::I suggest that the "belt going over one shoulder" could be a type of military decoration, as seen on this page http://www.sheringhamtown.co.uk/kingnicholas.htm. zsingaya 21:04, 9 May 2005 (UTC) Redirect/Piped link policy? I think it is time to reconsider our policy regarding redirects and piped links. In the past, we often deleted unused redirects (Immediate deletion exception #1), although the deletion policy as well as at the same time state that deletion should occur "only if the problems they cause outweigh their advantages". At the same time, sometimes piped links are used that simply don't make much sense, probably because a redirect using the same titles would have been deleted immediately. A good example for this is Tarquin's people on Delphic Expanse. Should there ever be an article about Tarquin's people, there's no easy way to find this piped link and change it to the correct target. Using a redirect from Tarquin's people to Tarquin's homeworld would be much better in this case. I think we should allow more redirects than we do now. Immediate deletion should be reserved for redirects that absolutely don't make sense, are offensive (as described on ) or are misspellings. On the other hand, piped links should be restricted to variants of the title/object (such as: Enterprise, Enterprise-D, NCC-1701-D, ...). What do you think? -- Cid Highwind 11:34, 11 May 2005 (UTC) :Good point: an example I may want to introduce into the discussion is MA/en's policy for early history, in MA/de we have redirects for every century, so that if we might consider to split the page we don't have to search every post; misspellings are indeed to be deleted, that is also why I don't understand the reason to keep Geordi LaForge -- Kobi - [[ :Kobi|( )]] 11:56, 11 May 2005 (UTC) ::As you can see from Memory Alpha:Pages for immediate deletion, I have been trying to support the retention of useful redirects. Perhaps we should concentrate on expanding the Memory Alpha:List of useful redirects -- make it list every redirect that exists, or has been "patrolled" -- basically create a manifesto of redirects someone has preferred to keep at some point -- and to open discussion if anyone thinks a redirect or series of redirects is inappropriate. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 18:19, 12 May 2005 (UTC) Adding new images to pages Sorry to ask this question, there may be an obvious answer. To add an image to a page I know that you add the text and whatever else you wish for formatting. But how in the first place do you get an image from your own computer, such as the example 'imagename', into Memory Alpha? : If you look on the left margin, you will see will answer all of your questions. Indeed, Ten Forward is for discussing the running of Memory Alpha. As to this question, on the left, beneath is is where to go to — — Ŭalabio 01:57, 15 May 2005 (UTC) List reordering I've noticed that some users have been reformatting lists from this style: *TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint" *DS9: "Emissary" *TNG: "All Good Things..." to a style like this: *TNG **"Encounter at Farpoint" **"All Good Things..." *DS9 **"Emissary" Was there ever a vote or a consensus to move over to this new style that I may have missed? I don't find anything particularly wrong with the new style... my only major issue is that episodes become segregated by series rather than chronological order, which is especially bad for things which appeared over multiple series and movies. -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 20:06, 21 May 2005 (UTC) :I think an effort should be made to find lists that are chronologically ordered and maintain the older style. :I like the newer style for removing excessive occurrences of "TNG" and such in longer multi-series lists. I didn't think I'd need a vote to remove extra links -- it is MA policy to remove excess links like the repeated ENTs and VOYs in these lists. Although other users discussed this with me on talk pages, i think the consensus comes as that, when this style is added to an article, it is usually maintained there as the simplest possible ordering of the information. I decided to Be bold and add some lists like these to see how they would work. :You are absolutely right, however, that chronologically ordered lists like the example above should be maintained in the older style to remain as informative as possible. I think it might be worth adding a disclaimer to the Memory Alpha:Manual of Style cautioning users not to disturb the order of the list when multiple series' episodes are interspersed chronologically, and to only institute a simpler style if the list is sorted by series. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 20:45, 21 May 2005 (UTC) ::So should we keep it like the first style if chronological order is desired, or do something like this: ::*TNG ::**"Encounter at Farpoint" ::**"The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" ::**"The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" ::*DS9 ::**"Emissary" ::**"Battle Lines" ::*TNG ::**"The Pegasus" ::**"All Good Things..." ::I'd be content with this format, in order to both preserve the chronological order and be consistent with the other list styles. -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' Okay here is a good question, I think. What do you mean by chronologically? The episode/movie production chronology or the in-Trek universe chronology. I was attempting to reorder the Excelsior class appearances, and in doing so, there was the difficulty of deciding in the appearance of several ships, if whether to organize them by their episodic appearances or their Trek-history appearances. This is especially difficult in cases where ships are shown "out of time", like having the Excelsior and Enterprise-B appearances falling in the middle of TNG/DS9 and VOY's timeline. Below are the two examples of what I mean (sorry it's so long). :Production Chronology: *Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock'' **''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' *TNG: ** "Encounter at Farpoint" ** "Where No One Has Gone Before" ** "The Child" *Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier'' *TNG: ** "Tin Man" ** "The Offspring" ** "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" ** "The Drumhead" * Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country *TNG: ** "Ethics" ** "Chain of Command, Part I" ** "Chain of Command, Part II" *DS9: ** "Emissary" *TNG: ** "Preemptive Strike" *Star Trek Movies: ** Star Trek: Generations *DS9: ** "The Way of the Warrior" ** "By Inferno's Light" *VOY: ** "Flashback" *DS9: ** "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" *VOY: ** "Relativity" ::OR :Trek Universe Chronology: *Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock'' **''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' **''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier'' **''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country'' *VOY: ** "Flashback" *Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek: Generations'' *TNG: ** "Encounter at Farpoint" ** "Where No One Has Gone Before" ** "The Child" ** "Tin Man" ** "The Offspring" ** "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" *DS9: ** "Emissary" *TNG: ** "The Drumhead" ** "Ethics" ** "Chain of Command, Part I" ** "Chain of Command, Part II" *TNG: ** "Preemptive Strike" *VOY: ** "Relativity" *DS9: ** "The Way of the Warrior" Although I realize the "Emissary", "Flashback", and "Relativity" appearances are debatable, would it just be best to leave all of the TOS Movie appearances together? --Gvsualan 13:29, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) Person, Place, or Thing... Would it be at all redundant to have a subheading for every entry that idetifies the subject as one that referes to a 'Person', 'Place', or 'Thing'? Or is the accompanying text ample enough? :This is a function that is defined by the Memory Alpha:Category tree -- a type of article must be suggested to be categorized at Memory Alpha:Category suggestions -- and then the categorization is performed by adding a tag to every article of that type. : lists all of the different categories that have been created so far. I encourage anyone who wishes to discuss the dynamics of creating Category:People, Category:Places, etc, to discuss it at the suggestion page i linked above. To better understand the dynamics of why we avoid creating incorrect category names, read some in the Memory Alpha:Category suggestion archive. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 18:53, 25 May 2005 (UTC) I found a collection of fairuse images from Star Trek: Nemesis. ---- Here it is: http://stardestroyer.net/Nemesis/Pictorial-1.html It even has captions. ;-) I actually like Star Trek: Nemesis, but this satire reminds us all that we must suspend disbelieve to enjoy fiction. Suspension of disbelieve is like a trained ceti eel we can put in our ears before enjoying fiction, and then remove when finished. Although earwigs upon whom ceti eels are based do not truly eat brains, some worms do. ¡Enjoy the satire! — — Ŭalabio 05:04, 26 May 2005 (UTC) ---- :Just a friendly reminder: Ten Forward and Memory Alpha are not discussion boards for topics which do not pertain to the wiki... I believe this falls under the category of "discussion." If you wish to post material like this, you are welcome to do so at the Subspace Comms Network. Thanks! -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 17:07, 27 May 2005 (UTC) :: This is half joke, half serious. Now that we had our laugh '' (it is good to let down our hair from time to time), '' we really can use the screencaptures in our articles as fair use ' — perhaps sans the additional subtitles. ;-) ' This really is a good resource and humorous. This is like the biographies of neocons '' (fascistic chickenhawks) '' in Rotten.Com; given the tong and cheek nature of Rotten.Com, one would not expect Rotten.Com to be accurate, but the biographies are accurate ' — neocons do not like Rotten.Com, so Rotten.Com returns the favor. ' — — Ŭalabio 03:33, 28 May 2005 (UTC) Subject: Alien Identification Source: Ds9 Episode: Business as Usual Greetings all. Within the season 5 Deep Space Episode : Business as Usual, Quark has dealings with a ruthless human arms dealer by the name of Hagath. Multiple times within the episode, firstly when the Hagath character is introduced to the episode, we see a female alien companion of Hagaths introduced to Quark as "Talura". Might anyone be able to identify Taluras race? : I don't believe her species was ever identified. She was just described, according to the script, as: "a statuesque and disquietingly beautiful female alien (a la the Boslic Captain)." This of course does not mean she was a Boslic, unless a side-by-side comparison indicates otherwise, and that shes just some otherwise random female with a similar stature. That's all I got.--Gvsualan 08:18, 28 May 2005 (UTC) List of people into categories Yesterday, a registered user created Category:Klingons based on my supercategory suggestion Category:People -- basically, on Memory Alpha:Category tree suggestions, there have been no objections to a category based on the list of people :(Cid Highwind started the precedent for using a lists article to seed a list category in the original "category suggestions" talk page. All of these are populated lists are approved to be categorized under the terms of the suggestion. IMO any group of people with more than 20 known & named members is probably ripe for categorization -- whether it be an organization/unit, species or service.(examples of categories enacted already based on this suggestion are Category:USS Voyager personnel; Category:Humans; Category:Starfleet personnel). I though it might be a good idea to use ten-forward to run this by the community, since this seems to be the beginning of a major categorization effort, there are dozens of affiliations that people could be categorized under, so I want to see any additional suggestions made now, before we commit to these actions and beginning using bots or archivist efforts to categorize these articles. Main on my mind is the fact that some characters will be highly multicategorized, if they served in a few starship crews or are members of more than one species (shocking, but true). does anyone see any difficulties, or is this beneficial? (i've found it to be fairly useful -- Spock for example is human, Vulcan, NCC-1701 personnel and Starfleet personnel, so he is extensively cross reference). If there are no objections, perhaps a bot-operator could begin the categorization effort in a couple of days, or sooner or later depending on the consensus of the community. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 18:30, 31 May 2005 (UTC) : I also noticed someone (an IP user) created the Category:Andorians - I added all of the Andorians to the list, but now, in response to your suggestion of "any group of people with more than 20 known", should we delete it, as there are only 12 named Andorians? --Gvsualan 20:11, 31 May 2005 (UTC) ::Not sure on this -- we have a few other categories with only a few entries, perhaps we should allow all 20+ lists to become categories automatically, and call for consensus on less than 20 people categories -- andorians seem to be important enough to warrant this, especially since there will be a few lists of unnamed people still to be categorized (and possibly to fill out an unnamed Andorians list, although a few others will be listed elsewhere (the Andorian Avenger helmsman will be under mirror universe people and the Andorian extras in TMP will be under USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel) -- for example, there are unnamed vulcans and unnamed humans in the USS Voyager personnel list, so i categorized that under each species also - - the category will provide a link to all ship personnel lists that had an unnamed member of that species. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 20:19, 31 May 2005 (UTC) Talk:Zoe McLellan Adding offsite photos to articles -- is this a violation of a policy? -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 02:56, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) :No rule says that images must be on Memory-Alpha. I see no reason not to link to external images. — — Ŭalabio 08:16, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) :It's a violation of common courtesy and netiquette, certainly. Hotlinking images steals bandwidth. In addition, we need the images to be uploaded to our server so we can include the proper copyright references and citations. Memory Alpha:Image use policy doesn't say anything about hotlinking purely because it is expected that you upload the images here. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 11:16, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) *Clearly not all are thinking that way, said note should be added. Tyrant 03:13, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)Tyrant Scheduled Down-time Will also this affect all wikicities, or just MA? --Defiant | ''Talk'' 16:23, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) Out-dated Image use policy? Currently, our image policy states: "Generally, no more than one or two images should be used in an article; three images might be acceptable for some long articles." While this may be acceptable for average pages, there are numerous examples of articles for which three images as a maximum is simply not enough. Examples are long episode summaries and pages of main characters. Checking out our Featured Article's list, one would notice practically all of these pages contain far more than three images. I would suggest to revise this rule, stating no article may have more than three images that are article-specific. While a page would than be allowed to have more images (though one should not go overboard on image use, of course), it would limit the number of images uploaded specifically for that page. For example, an image showing two main characters can be used on the pages of both characters under "Personal relationships", as well as on the page the image was screencaptured from. This way, an image is/can be used on at least three pages. Ottens 17:12, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)